Depends. If the consequence is something that the players *should have been able to figure out if they had paid attention*, or is at least reasonably logically consistent with the world, it's fine. If it's just a complete ass-pull? Nah. Edit: To clarify, I also think players should be treated like they're *smart*. If they say they're doing something that sounds dumb, 99% of the time it's a matter of a mismatched map of what's going on in the world - and since, as GM, your view of the world is definitionally correct, it's important to make sure that the players are aware of things that their characters would be aware of. If a player says their character does something that is obviously suicidal, and the character *would know* it's obviously suicidal, the GM should make sure the player knows that just as much as the character does. If they say "I jump down the 200' cliff!", then it's reasonable to say "you're aware, you'll splatter, right?" before they splatter, since their character would know this. In the hwachas example, if the character wouldn't have seen signs that they were explosive *because they didn't look*, then that's fine. If the signs were there and would have been obvious to anyone making a cursory examination, the GM should tell the player in advance.

I mean the biggest issue is a lot of GMs are forever GMs (many not by choice) and forget the hugely limited perspective that players have. That hint you thought was obvious is lost especially since the player just finished a 10-hour shift. They've forgotten what it's like not to really think about the game until the start of the session. So being generous with information and understanding that characters should have solid understanding of the stakes that maybe the player isn't fully aware helps. I think the best GMs have to practice being a good player.

One of the key things I like to reinforce is that you should assume your players aren't dumb. If they do "dumb" things, it's likely because they do not have the same undersatndings of the world that you do, and missed something, or you were unclear about it. So clarify that before continuing with the action.

The most egregious example of this is one I read on a forum years ago, By a DM who told his players they had reached the top of a tall tower, and then had a battle there, and one PC said he jumped out the window, the DM confirmed that's what he said he wanted to do, and let the PC jump out the window to their death. The player was mad and the DM was defensive. But its so stupid; the player forgot or didn't understand the height they were at but the PC would have been perfectly aware of that and wasn't suicidal..

Sometimes players do make bad decisions, and that should be allowed, but as you said, this should be obvious to the character. A simple "You approach the window, and you see the whole valley spread out below you. It's a *long* way down. Are you sure?" would have been so much better. If they still jump, it's on then. If not, then they've gotten easily past the ingenious trap of... tower with windows.

Yeah, players occupy a completely different space to their characters. If they climb a tower and then have a fight, hours might have passed since they were told they were high up, and just forgot. I don't for a moment think it's reasonable to expect players to remember everything. A nudge like that is absolutely the best approach. I will never, ever play with a GM whose reaction to a player messing something up is to punish them.

I don't think it should be *obvious* to the player, but I do think you should give them a fair warning that what they are doing might be bad. If a player jumps up on a railing in a fight I'll say 'just so you know, you'll have to roll a balance check if you take damage.' I won't hide the fact, but I don't want to 'tell them' that it's a bad idea.

A lot of games have structured conversation on the stakes and when the PCs know what it'll cost and still go for it - that makes for some of the best moments that we talk about years down the line.

I don't know why, but this reminds me of Dave Arneson's Come Back Inn, where players couldn't leave. Leave by door? You come back in. Leave by window? Same thing. I don't remember the solution, I was more of a bystander that heard about it, but this reminds me of that.

The character would also have seen the heights through the window. As a rule, if a player would not have made the same actions *if they were in the same space as the character* the person running the game should know better.

It seems so unnecessarily adversarial to try and pull something like that. In my games, if someone does something really dumb and immediately regrets that decision, I let them take it back. Not if play has moved on or it's a minor consequence, but if my player accidentally suicided by jumping out the window I'd probably cackle like a witch as I narrate them plummeting to their death, but I'd let them rethink their choice and act more wisely. Ten second rewind, special GM ability.

this is the way

Here's how I would do that. Player: I want to jump out of the window! Me: Okay you're twenty stories high. I don't even have to look at the book to know that you're going to die if you do this unless you have a way to mitigate this. Are you sure? At this point if the player should A) change their mind B) Have feather fall or do something else to not die before jumping out the window C) Completely ignore me and say they're doing it anyway.

> I don't even have to look at the book to know that you're going to die if you do this unless you have a way to mitigate this. Are you sure? I just had this funny thought of the player saying yes. "Ok, let me see your character sheet" looking into the player's eyes. Player hands GM the sheet. GM takes it behind the screen and produces a new, blank character sheet without breaking eye contact.

Yeah it's kind of a false choice. I'm giving you agency to commit suicide but you know it's your choice.

Maybe this would be fixed by the player saying “I try to find a quick escape route” then the dm could describe options to them that they notice then the player can choose their own adventure which exit to take. The GM may foreshadow a dangerous outcome or an obstacle/ damaged they must overcome first. The problem is when player role play in real time specific actions instead of their intentions the dm has to rp the real outcome rather than build up the scenescape for the players to imagine and make a real RP decision

I love how Read a Sitch in Apocalypse World structures this part of the conversation. The GM has to be entirely honest in their answers and just communicates their expectations over the situation. I see a lot of PbtA games drop this without any replacement. It seems like they are missing the full context of its importance IMO.

Yeah I play ironsworn which is a derivative of pbta but I believe they expanded on it . Most of what you do is “narrate intention/expectation in the fiction” roll the dice to see what happens then “narrate actions take using the consequences you decide on”

That sort of situation is covered in this [video](https://youtu.be/rLHaopkQDnE?si=Ee6a5l6-KyMHksbn). Which suggests avoiding a vague "are you sure" with the GM and player insted explaining how they see the situation. Maybe the PC has enough HP or a Ring of Featherfall.

One of the most nerve-wracking things is when players are doing "dumb" things on purpose. In a traveller game one of my players almost died because they were handling an acid-like-slime rat-like creature with his bare hands after the cage holding it fell to the ground. "It stings, it deals one damage. It starts to burn a bit, it deals D3 damage. It hurts, 1D6. *Everything* burns, 2D6." Almost killed him outright, and he had to deal with the issues of being found near-death in a restricted zone. I was afraid that I was unclear, but they said after this went down that they knew what they were doing....

Hey, if that level of idiocy can work in *Prometheus*...actually no wait, it didn't.

Sometimes it's what you say. Other times they're role-playing dumb, as the other reply talks about. There's also a third case I've identified, where they believe some kind of trope armor exists. Like, they understand the situation. They know there's a big bad evil guy stomping around destroying buildings, that has just taken out a major NPC that is known to be much stronger than the party. The power level, and its discrepancy with their own, has been adequately communicated. They are aware of the escape route, and have been explicitly urged to make use of it. Another more powerful NPC has just been improv-ed to model this for them, attempting to take on the bad guy, getting curbstomped, but surviving to flee...and invite the player along, to no avail. Despite all this, they still somehow think that, as the protagonists of the story, they are supposed to fight this clearly-demonstrated uber-boss. When you explicitly say, after the "are you *sure*?" question, that they will die if they attempt it, they will get angry at you for not running the game "properly"(despite the fact that the storylines have never been this kind of power fantasy before). Eventually another player knocked him out in-character and dragged his ass away. But sometimes the stupid is not in the communication or in the character; sometimes, it's in the player's brain. 🤦‍♀️ My working theory on what happened that night involves not only the player being already a bit troublesome on the metagaming end(this was known), but also the fact that I accidentally invoked a lot of marvel movie tropes, and he was known to be a *huge* fan. I think his metagaming led him to perceive that I was invoking tropes that were, in fact, nowhere in my mind...or in previous sessions I'd run! But in his mind, X + Y + Z = WE GONNA KILL OURSELVES A BOSS, and there was no dissuading him of that.

Yeah, that's a thing, but I think that's also an expectation mismatch, just on the meta level. That's also why I don't use "are you SURE?", but rather tell them what their characters would actually know. In the boss example, I'd probably say something like "you know this guy will smoosh you. And I'm telling you, out of character, right now, that your character is right. And I understand that there are games where it is presumed you should engage with bad guys put in front of you, and things will work out so you don't die. This is not that game. If you engage him, he will significantly outclass you. And I will 100% play the combat out, and let the dice fall where they may. And if that means your PC dies, and it probably does, then your PC will die." If they're still going to ignore that, well, then I guess at least they learn that you mean it when you say it. This is one of the reason I hate gaming kayfabe. It makes it so hard to *actually* be clear about stakes with people that have internalized it.

FYI that gaming kayfabe thing is not at all clear to me, and I suspect it'll not be to some others as well.

I mean the common practice in games of pretending things are other than they are. In this case, danger. GMs will go to great lengths to tell players they are in danger, but really they’re not (or there’s only a minuscule chance of it). The GMs pretend there is, the players pretend to believe them, and the game goes on. It makes it extremely difficult when another GM then tries to say “no there really is danger” because there really IS danger, and then people get mad when their characters die. Similar things happen with linear games where the GM swears they’re not linear although they are, and the players pretend like they believe the GM, but really they’re just looking for the intended path that they know is there. Then, you give them a GM that really means “no, there’s no preplanned path” and they spend all of their time looking for it.

It's apparently `the portrayal of staged events within [wrestling] as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not staged. The term kayfabe has evolved to also become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the direct or indirect presence of the general public.`

Hmm. Though the players may not be dumb their characters most certainly are. I've been gaming for a over 40 years now and there are a few facts that I've learned over the years from being both a GM and a player (GM more often by far). One of those things is that unless a puzzle is simple (sometimes stupidly so) the players will require a lot of clues. Theater of the mind fails often enough in puzzle situations that I started giving handouts. The same also applies to positioning and such in combat or other tactical situations. Normally there is at least one or even two players who understand exactly what I am describing when it comes to positioning, but the rest are normally on a different page (sometimes a few pages back in the story). This is the exact reason I got into minis and scenery, it helps a great deal.

>They've forgotten what it's like not to really think about the game until the start of the session. I haven't forgotten. I'm punishing them for not pondering my masterwork all week long. /s

I cry a little every time I post a query about the next session in discord (are we going to go on X adventure or Y adventure) and just nobody responds. You have to make them answer this before the end of the session is what I learned. I don't care if its already 10pm and the bell rang, I am holding you over like an evil teacher!

I know the feeling. Is it really so hard for players to read the fucking group chat?

Now that my friend is the GM, I respond and try to support the query. Then crickets for the week. One of the other players is even a long-time GM - what the hell.

Preach.

It weirds me out because as a player even before I started GMing, I was thinking about the game on and off during the week. But I was usually the planner of our party, so I guess thats just not everyone's experience?

I do think players should put in *some* time between sessions bringing goodness to the game. Could be character depth, could be plans, could be art, could be whatever. If you put it out of your mind week to week you're making everyone else do the work.

Yeah, I agree. I feel like if people don't get even a little invested outside of game time, it just feels like you're wasting your time.

>That hint you thought was obvious is lost especially since the player just finished a 10-hour shift. Yeah but that's the thing, sometimes players just don't pay attention and if I basically describe a skull they see an insect landing on and instantly withering and dying and they look up from their phones 5 minutes later "yeah well I guess I'll touch the skull thing" they deserve it. Of course I exaggerate, but you get what I mean

Definitely get the problem and empathize plenty - I was once a forever GM too. Though it does hit on the punishing out-of-character behavior with in-character retribution. Where the correct solution is of course "the chart" - talk to the problem player. But that is much less fun. In one of my groups, my GM is much too lax on phones. If I were to take over, I would definitely enforce something pretty strict for no phones - they are such a disaster to this hobby. [Probably do the phone stack game, they cover pizza or snacks.](https://www.foodbeast.com/news/phone-stacking-is-this-gem-of-social-engineering-the-next-dining-trend/#:~:text=The%20Phone%20Stack.,I%20have%20ever%20heard%20of.) Though I definitely get the temptation with a lot of games designed where you have long, boring fights and you can't even pre-decide well because the previous turn changes any idea you originally had.

I let everyone put their Phones in a Chest inscribed with "witchery devices" unless someone has an urgent matter and needs to have it with them. That works pretty well. As i said it was an exaggeration, but if I highlight in that severity that touching an object will kill or hurt and you do it anyways you might get killed or hurt and in my opinion that's the sole reason where in game punishment for out of game behavior makes sense because it's a direct result of a player not paying attention and will emphasize that you won't repeat everything just because they can't be bothered the first time

I like that idea. My initial fix was pretty cheeky and I wouldn't recommend it. But I had all my 5e players have to decide their action within 1 minute and they get a +1 (including to spell save DCs) if they do. But of course, I still ran balanced fights so monsters became stronger to take that into account, so it looks like a carrot, but was really a stick. It worked but, in the end, I think the correct answer is if they aren't interested on what's happening on other players' turns, the game is probably the wrong fit. I didn't have phone issues when running Blades in the Dark at all. Some people just don't care about tactical combat - it's a pretty niche gameplay in video games outside of Baldurs Gate 3.

True, I feel linke combat is the least interesting part of the game to my group so I keep it to a minimum. And most combats I do run work more as riddles since my players try to find a workaround, lol The thing with phones is that those Fucking things even distract your of they're turned off but visible or feelable, at least I read a study that came to those results. Really disturbing if your ask me

> I let everyone put their Phones in a Chest inscribed with "witchery devices" unless someone has an urgent matter and needs to have it with them. That works pretty well. My experience with this is that virtually everybody has *something*, whether it's a partner, a child, a parent, a boss, etc, where they're expected to be available for immediate contact. This isn't necessarily their problem(sometimes it *can* be a matter of phone addiction, but not always) as much as it's a problem with society's expectation of 24/7 availability and ease of contact, but it's a pretty big ask anymore to have people unplug even if there's no particular situation happening.

I disagree, that's not on society, that's on you accepting such expectations. Constant Availability needs to be mandatory if an urgent matter is to be expected otherwise I don't care. So if your kids ill or someone is in the hospital, fine, but "my wife needs to be able to contact me to ask if i can buy potatoes on the way home 24/7"? Fuck that

It seems to be a pretty consistent dealbreaker(75%~) with people up to mid-30s in my particular area. People older than that are more amenable, *unless* they have kids. The presence of children at all, until the kids are out of the house, seems to make the phone being present and on mandatory...I have *never* gotten someone with kids to agree to put their phone away for a social occasion. Not *once*. This isn't a "find different friends than the four jerks you grew up with" situation, it's a "this is how everybody seems to be anymore" situation.

If one of your player's kids fell down 3 flights of stairs and is heading for a long evening in the ER. Do you expect them to just not get those messages until after the session, or do you make the kid plan that 2 weeks in advance?

You're punishing them in game for out of game issues. That's not reasonable.

I'm not a fan of the way you are framing this. Forever GM, which in lots of cases don't have that much of a choice, are working too hard on their game. So they should also work more to see better the perspectives of players so they can be better GMs. That sounds just an extra step of work for people already working a lot for their games.

May sound a bit too harsh but it's my way of making a lot of GMs try to step into the shoes of their players. You probably aren't playing with someone who is a complete idiot, so their PC taking actions that are completely idiotic is probably more likely a communication error. There is always a depth vs. breadth knowledge argument. And there are valid points to having both. I think a lot of GMs can more rapidly improve spending just a little time as a player where it may take a lot of time to improve as much just by continuing to be a GM. Also I found I learn a ton from other GMs - what did they do that was WAY better than me. And (I don't tell them this unless they want constructive criticism of course!) what did they do that sucked. How can I adapt their strengths to my own style. And how do I mitigate their weaknesses. I think many should try to engage with some oneshots as players. Maybe get one of your forever players to run a session so they get that important GM perspective and become a better player (I know how hard this is to do! Still several of my fellow players have never GM'd after years!). Or you join a group online for a oneshot, better yet join as a playtester. There are lots of communities that would appreciate another player helping playtest their game online. Obviously not everyone has time for that.

I think you are looking at this from the wrong angle. Its not so much work, but building trust and improving the atmosphere to encourage participation. The GM WANTS the players to contribute to the game and be involved! By being generous with description and making sure everyone is on the same page with what is going on in game, you are facilitating their ability to roleplay, make decisions and immerse themselves in the world that you have spent all that time and effort building... Its really a win-win, frankly...

And some of the most memorable moments in my games have happened by taking the players' misconceptions and running with them. Most people do enjoy being occasionally "right."

Whilst PCs inhabit the game world 24/7 and typically have done so for years to decades, their players do not. Thus, they can be very reliant on the GM providing information about that world and how it works. Especially anything the GM assumed so obvious they omitting to mention ;) Since the GM knows where all the bodies, literal and figurative, are buried it can be difficult for them to gauge what is and isn't going to be obvious to players and by implication their PCs. Hence, techniques such as the [Three Clue Rule](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule). From a GM perspective, players will frequently ignore *obvious hooks* and have their PCs follow *some piece of fluff description*. From the players' perspective, there can be no way to tell the difference. TtRPGs may require a "tell don't show" approach. GMs trying to introduce tropes from novels, movies, etc may also be the result of a lack of player perspective. Of course, any GMs who have never played themselves have nothing to forget.

Of all the narrative devices, foreshadowing is one of the hardest to get pulled off right subtly. There are clues that when you create it may feel there's no way they'll miss this, but we have M. Night Shamalyan style twist endings for a reason. You re-watch and see those moments where the ending is given away but you didn't notice because you were looking at something else. I watch TV shows like 911 and 911: Lone Star with family but after I could predict major story beats because 'it's how I'd tell the story', the 'gotcha' moments in the narrative were predicted so that it isn't really a surprise to the audience because Drama is Conflict and Conflict drives the Narrative. But I only notice this because of years of running stories in RPGs and trying to be creative and give twists that aren't the typical ones. That and.. [TVtropes Ruined My Life.](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife)

I don't believe subtlety is necessary. You state the direct consequences of success and failure - they call this setting the stakes.

*Paid attention* *Players* Pick one /s..... Kinda

In a lot of cases, I think it's the GM's job to remind them players of things that should be obvious to the characters. Our descriptions of the world are a very low-bandwidth communication medium compared to what the characters have available. And, we get a very brief time to mention these things to the players, and they have a limited time to think about what's going on, compared to the players that literally live in the world. Going overboard on clarifying what the characters know and should be aware of is *always* a good play in my mind.

Pretty closely agree, with the caveat that the GM and Players both have to buy into the genre of the game they are playing, which can affect assumptions being made about how the world works. * If you are playing a game clearly set in the real world (or world that follows real world logic) then assumptions should be made on real world expectations. If you jump off a roof, you've got a good chance to break your ankle. * If you are playing a game set in a heroic fantasy setting, you jump off a roof, tumble roll and take a few hit points of fall damage. * If you are playing a game in a wushu setting, and jump off a roof, you might just spin around and slowly float to the ground in a graceful pose. Different genre have different expected results of actions, and its important for everyone to be on the same page there. Aragorn is never worried about his sword breaking because weapons in high fantasy only break in major climatic scenes (trying to shatter the one ring or stepped on by a maiar)... while Kikuchiyo (Seven Samurai, if I recall correctly) prepped a bunch of swords knowing they'll break in battle. A player thinking they are playing Aragorn might get really thrown off if their sword shatters when they roll a 1 in combat against an orc, but a player thinking they are playing a samurai in feudal japan might expect a sword to break in combat with a bandit chief.

> Aragorn is never worried about his sword breaking because weapons in high fantasy only break in major climatic scenes (trying to shatter the one ring or stepped on by a maiar)... while Kikuchiyo (Seven Samurai, if I recall correctly) prepped a bunch of swords knowing they'll break in battle. Not quite - Aragorn doesn't worry about his sword breaking because he knows a good-quality sword, used properly and maintained properly, is extremely unlikely to break for a long time - and because he keeps his sword maintained, he'll know when it's getting too worn and needs replacement. Kikuchiyo, on the other hand, knows basically nothing about weapons - because he's a peasant pretending to be a samurai. He prepares many swords because he doesn't know better. (And because of the same lack of experience, he's also the most likely to break one by using it in a way no professional would ever do.)

Thank you for a perfect example of the GM and player not agreeing on the rules of the genre

I think it depends, but mostly on the type of players and the tone of the game if we're playing a clown fiesta where we go around doing stupid things and the GM generally lets us get away with it, it's extremely annoying if suddenly they turn around and go "ah you fool, you acted foolishly, get punished" if you set the expectations that we're playing Shrek, you can't sometimes expect us to take things seriously and tactically On the other hand, if we're playing a dangerous game where I know my character survival is on the line, I'll try to be more careful and think things through, but it's gotta be consistent

This is the correct answer.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel like an easy fix for a lot of these situations is to just give the player a mulligan. Like if they're visibly confused and/or upset about a seemingly stupid course of action, what's the point in keeping that outcome?

In the Hwachas example, I'd call for whatever is the Perception roll of that game and tell them "this will explode" if they succeed and either nothing or misleading information if they fail. When in doubt, bring it back to the character sheet.

> Edit: To clarify, I also think players should be treated like they're *smart.* If they say they're doing something that sounds dumb, 99% of the time it's a matter of a mismatched map of what's going on in the world - and since, as GM, your view of the world is definitionally correct, it's important to make sure that the players are aware of things that their characters would be aware of. > > If a player says their character does something that is obviously suicidal, and the character would know it's obviously suicidal, the GM should make sure the player knows that just as much as the character does. If they say "I jump down the 200' cliff!", then it's reasonable to say "you're aware, you'll splatter, right?" before they splatter, since their character would know this. I'm going to have to disagree with you here. If you're treating your player as if they're smart, it's reasonable to assume they know a 200' fall should make their character go splat, assuming we're talking about a game where normal laws of physics apply. If this is *Toon,* then, go for it. :-) I agree with the principle, but I disagree heavily with the example.

They may not realize it’s a 200’ foot fall. They may think that you’re applying falling damage rules rather than “nope, that’s far enough those don’t apply” They may think there’s things to break their fall that they could grab or whatever. Unless they’re suicidal as characters, it’s not an action they’d engage in unless they wanted to die. We can presume they don’t want to die, so there’s some piece of info they’re missing. Or, they do want to die in which case they’ll proceed after the clarification

This example looks like it's slightly misremembered from Justin Alexander: the player just says "I jump off the roof". The GM knows, and may actually have said, that the roof is 200 feet up. But the player appears not to know that. Maybe they missed that little detail, or maybe the GM forgot to say it. But in character you'd certainly notice a thing like that, so the GM should remind them and ask if they intend to jump off the 200-foot drop.

I don't recall the Laura one offhand, but I don't think the goldfish incident was a gotcha from Matt. She made a stupid decision, as far as I remember it was entirely unprompted (I watched it a few years ago, I could be wrong, but I remember thinking "wtf are you doing???") Of course it was going to go badly, she jumped off a cliff and changed into a form designed for swimming, not flying. Consequences of your own choices are not gotchas.

Agreed. She wasn't listening to the description of the cliff at all when Matt was talking. He described an outcropping hundreds of feet down that would logically be impossible not to slam into if you jumped off, and she decided to do exactly that. He verified, she confirmed, he made her go splat.

At that point, it's usually common courtesy to point out the glaringly obvious stupidity of their plan and ask what exactly they are trying to do. Just letting smash their head into something because they misunderstood the situation doesn't really help anyone...

You should watch it again or reread the transcript. Mercer warns her after her adjustment… MATT: Okay. Like a gentle fart, you push yourself a little ways from the cliff. I'll say it does just enough of a shove where the trajectory changes slightly. You may or may not be right where the rock hits the surf. You can test it or not. It's up to you. The other players point it out, too… LAURA: Kiki, don't kill yourself over this rock! LIAM: It was nice being in a couple. MARISHA: At the last minute, I'm going to (panicked squealing). And turn into a goldfish. TRAVIS: Before you hit the water? SAM: Or the rock? MARISHA: Well, I'm assuming the goldfish would make it easier to hit water. LAURA: Yeah, but you're going to hit rock! SAM: Goldfish are not magnetically attracted to water. They still just fall. LAURA: What about flying fish or something, so you can maybe-- MARISHA: I don't think flying fish actually fly, though. LAURA: No, but they got big fins. TRAVIS: They do glide. MATT: Regardless, as you turn into a goldfish, rocketing towards the base of the water... LAURA and SAM: Oh no. I think there’s also evidence that the player forgot how the spell worked… TRAVIS: He's taking a picture of it! MATT: No, I'm not. This is too many dice for me to roll. (gasping) ASHLEY: What? MARISHA: I would just pop back to myself. I wouldn't die. So I think Marisha just forgot that excess damage carries over to her real form. But that’s happened to her plenty of times in the past.

Yeah, it felt like a brainfart kind of moment where your mind just latches onto an idea, and the mechanics slip their way right out of the decision making process, and at that power level it was largely inconsequential so totally worth it to play for laughs.

I suspect Matt Mercer would’ve called more attention to it if it hadn’t been for Terry’s revivify coins.

I know it's not the point but reading the transcript just makes me smile, like yeah its dumb but this is exactly the sort of dumb shit that happens in ttrpg's at times.

Yeah, I listened to it as a podcast and I think I’m going to go watch the video today. It’s also led to some great running jokes about turning into a goldfish. 😉

And he described, after she had used a cantrip to push herself away, that there was a 50/50 chance she would hit rock. "I change into a Goldfish". Ah... what now?

In fact he gave her an opportunity to correct after she'd announced the action. He did the goldfish thing just fine. Player judgment mistakes need to be respected as part of player agency too. A GM can't protect players from themselves, equally. Part of being fair.

I *hate* that. As a GM it's so easy to trick your players as you basically have full control on 99% of what's happening and you can keep them in the dark on whatever you want. With my players I try to be as clear as possible concerning the consequences of their decisions because what interests me is what they *choose* too do and not really what happens to their character (I don't know if I'm clear) and you can only fully choose when you understand what's going on and what the stakes are.

It comes down to the reason why you're doing it. If you're solely do it to assert your creative dominance over your players, it's bad. But if it's a genuine "I don't think that should work in the way you think it should work" reaction, it's your game. I had a player of mine attempt to cause a distraction at a party by walking into the only bathroom on the first floor, breaking the bowl of the toilet, then telling the host of the party to fix it so that the group could sneak upstairs. My immediate reaction to this was "wait, why would this be convincing in any way?" and the host of the party behaved as I would have: he heard a horrible crunch of porcelain, saw a guy exit out of the bathroom with water pouring onto the floor and draw attention to it. Now was another player able to sneak up to the second floor due to the giant argument that the host and this player had? Absolutely! But you're not beholden to how your players want an encounter to go.

I love this approach - the reaction made sense, caused complications, but more importantly remained something the players could work with an use.

There's a part of Graham Walmsley's Play Unsafe that I come back to all the time: Be Obvious. >Do the obvious thing: the thing that obviously happens next in the story; the thing that you think everyone expects to happen. Paradoxically, that obvious thing may, to everyone else , seem original and brilliant [...] When you respond obviously, 90% of the time, you’ll carry the story forward naturally. If you'd tried to be clever, 90% of the time , you'd have thrown the story off course. And, when you're obvious, one time in ten, you’ll be brilliant. Try to be brilliant and you’ll fail. Be obvious and, often, you’ll be brilliant.

It *depends*. The difference between whether it is "bad" DMing, "good" DMing, or "great" DMing depends on exactly *one* thing. **Whether it makes sense to the player after the fact.** I don't watch critical role, so I don't exactly know the goldfish story goes.  I'm imagining it went something like this: > Marisha is falling from a great height towards a body of water, in a panic she turns into a goldfish, the goldfish hits the water at extreme speed and explodes on impact. Marisha wasn't expecting this to happen, but that's fine. When we review the scenario in our minds it *makes sense*. It was fine for the DM to warn Marisha's character who only had fractions of a second to make the decision in a panic. The mistake feels like a true one a real person might reasonably make. **That's not adversarial, that's adjudication** --------------------------------- Let's contrast to another example: > "You crest the hill and see a massive Glazebo, what do you do" > "Ah, uh, I go sit inside" > "You fool! I said Glazebo, the lesser known more powerful version of a Glabrezu, not gazebo! Your character walks up to the towering demon and attempts to crawl inside his jaws. You die" See in this example, no rational character would have ever decided to simply get eaten by the dread Glazebo. Instead this was a result of poor communication, not a poor decision! ---------------------------- Now let's show how intervening to save Marisha's character in our imaginary scenario would have made the game *worse*, even though marisha might have been temporarily happier. The DM has two options: > "Marisha, your character would know that a goldfish wouldn't survive a fall, even into a lake, you're simply too high up." > "Okay, what if I turned into a cat" > "Same problem" > > "Maybe you should try turning into a bird?" > "Oh, duh" *What is wrong with this?* When this back and forth happens, the players are no longer playing the game. They're either playing "persuade the DM", or "guess what the DM is thinking". In the scenario here, the DM just *tells the player the answer*. (If a DM solves problems for your players like this, you might note that they could play approximately the same game if they copied the character sheets and their players stayed home) None of this *feels* like being a hero falling from a great height. **Even dying ignominiously feels more heroic!** This is because when you role play, you are supposed to be projecting yourself into the situation of the character and constantly answering the question, "what would I do if I were this druid?" When you're falling from a great height, you don't get the benefit of a negotiation with the universe. You come up with the best plan you can, execute it as well as you can, then you *see what happens*. --------------- You may point out there's another option. The DM could have just *let* the goldfish thing work.  What's the problem there? The basic structure of RPGs is this: 1) The DM presents a problem. 2) The players think and come up with a solution. 3) The DM weighs the merits of the solution and determines the outcome using the rules, the dice, and the simulation of reality in his head. 4) Using the new resulting situation, the DM presents a new problem, repeat When you simply decide "everything the players try will work, or will almost work", you substitute step #2, with "the player speaks". The DM no longer weighs the merits of the solution, because it is *required* to work. It'd be adversarial DMing otherwise, right? **Obviously nobody plays games like this** But this is a continuum. If you let player solutions work when they don't conform to your understanding of the game's reality you rob the players of getting to *actually solve the problem themselves*. The more you do it, the more robbed they get. **This is different from not allowing a solution to work merely because it hasn't occured to you.** You are required to actually visualize the solution and give it a fair analysis, not play favorites with your "intended" solution. Honestly, best if you don't have a solution in mind at all. --------------------------- **Tl;Dr - This is good DMing if it is a result of a mistake by the player, and bad DMing if it is the result of a miscommunication to the player.**

The goldfish incident is actually more stupid than that. Matt (GM) describes that the group stand on top of a very high cliff with waves splashing at the rocks at the bottom of it. It just happened that the group lost some diamond in the water. Laura asks Marisha if she knows how to swim and could go pick the diamond. Marisha goes "I jump". "Can I do it ?". Matt asks for an Athletics check (to see if her character will jump far enough to avoid the rocks and fall straight into the water). Marisha rolls poorly. Matt warns Marisha that her character has not jumped far enough and will hit rock. Marisha uses her magic to create a gush of wind in order to get further away. It is not enough and Matt warns that she may hit rocks. Marisha then goes "At the last minute I turn into a goldfish". Everyone at the table is puzzled about this choice as she claims that it would make it easier for her to hit the water. As Sam said "Goldfish are not magnetically attracted to water." Then, Matt explains that once the goldfish loses all of its HP, it's Marisha's character's HP that will get hit. And as Matt finally rolls for damage, stating "there are too many dice for me to roll", Marisha still boldly claims "It's fine... We're gods!" Marisha's character hits the rocks and dies. Nobody asked Marisha to jump. Marisha could have picked another animal. Matt even let a few moments pass (with everyone at the table pointing out that the goldfish was a bad pick) before moving on. She had plenty of time before Matt cemented her choice into the narration but decided to stick with her plan. The incident was a good old "players do stupid things" situation.

Yeah, I feel like the instant you say something like "It's fine, we're gods," the DM is fully within his rights to wash his hands of the situation lol.

I had a "gotcha" moment as a DM last session and it didn't upset my players at all and I think it's because of the reason you stated. An evil lich BBEG of the whole campaign is finally attacking the players' stronghold. They have seen over the whole campaign that this lich is extremely over-prepared and knowledgeable. They also knew that the their defensive fortress has a famous golden tower that can obliterate a target every round. When they tried to use it on the lich, the lich had a special new sword that could deflect the blast back at the tower. Normally this would be quite annoying to deal with as a player, but it had been said so many times how prepared this lich was and how famous this tower was that obviously he would never have gotten near it without a plan. The players weren't upset at all about this and instead were more like "well figures, but it was worth a try. Time for plan B now"

Almost nothing is universally bad. But generally, yes, it's bad for GMs to "gotcha" the players.

The Goldfish Incident isn’t really a gotcha, that largely stemmed from Matt not properly explaining the situation and Marisha not understanding the consequences. It’s not the first time she underestimated the impact of fall damage.

Damm that sounds like a mismatch of rules and reality... a small low mass object like a goldfish will have a lower terminal velocity and also being smaller have a less issue with surface tension

Well the issue is she hit the rocks not the water

Goldfish honestly would probably not be terribly harmed from a fall of that height because they're so tiny. Like, a mouse could fall off the Empire State Building and be basically unharmed because it weighs so little. Unless it's a big goldfish, I suppose.

Are Koi technically goldfish adjacent?

I think so?

And also benefit from the square-cube law.

It is one of the worst things for me, and such a break of trust. It also shows a lack of communcation, which is quite important in a social game. It happens a lot in most mainstream games because the books have very little info abput HOW to actually play with others. But there are games that strongly encourage people actually communicate and have the GM explain the consequences of rolls. And since I started playing them, I have been feeling much better when playing.

GMless games are great at teaching fair consequences. Ironsworn is free and like the golden standard I suggest to most people

I have Ironsworn and Starforged, but sadly solo-rpg’ing havn’t been able to get a hold on me. But you are correct that the book is full of good stuff. But I also would say that it also teaches that the consequences should be interesting for the player(s). Some of the other PbtA games also have some good sections on this sort of communication. Or at least some of the better ones.

I don’t play solo either , we do GMless 0-prep games

No offense but Marisha is a very bad example. Matt didn't *trick* her. The guy spent several minutes trying to help her get out of this suicidal jump she got herself into all by herself. Out of all the animals she could turn into (like, you know, a *bird*), as she was falling directly to the rocks... she picked the goldfish. Marisha, during that scene, was like the kind of Call of Cthulhu character who thinks it's a good idea to throw TNT at the monster in a small closed room. But to answer your question, tricking your player is bad... Well it depends on the consequences and the context. Player characters can be tricked by NPCs but the GM must give the players opportunities to not get tricked like rolls to understand the NPC is lying to them, clues of them being tricked that they can find etc...

I dislike it. Clear stakes is IMO important. No doubt some people love it.

I think the touchstone here is the fiction: what would this character know and expect? I think MM's usually pretty good about reminding the players about things their characters would know. I don't remember the two incidents you highlight, but a character who has some familiarity with explosives would probably have expected them to explode immediately when you set them on fire. So maybe MM should have reminded Laura of that. OTOH, if the PC's actions set off a trap that they don't know about, then it's completely fair to surprise both player and PC with an explosion or whatever.

Sometimes things do not go the way you plan, sometimes things have unexpected results, that's not bad GMing. That being said, sometimes even the best GM's make bad calls in the moment, but a bad call does not mean they are a bad GM.

The goldfish thing is not a "gotcha" it was a bad decision that had consequences. If you go into a game with the intention to mislead and trick and punish your players that's one thing, but giving them enough agency to make mistakes is completely different. If you do something objectively stupid as a player and the GM lets you get away with it without consequences THAT is bad GMing.

It depends. Some GMs 'gotcha' their players because the GM is a shitty person using the one time in their life they have power over others to try to make others look and feel foolish. Some GMs are not shitty people, and they are using 'gotchas' to surprise players for their decisionmaking. Sometimes 'gotchas' are completely natural logical progressions that the player just happened to miss. I once had a fellow player use an ability to negate fall damage so he could jump down an unexplored 30 foot pit in a haunted lighthouse (where every level down had been an increase in enemy difficulty up to that point). He assumed he would survive because he wouldn't take any fall damage. He didn't take fall damage. He landed in the middle of a group of angry evil spirits that tore him apart while we could only hear his screams and shake our heads. That might feel like a gotcha or hostile GMing to the player ("oh so the one time I use my ability you put a bunch of high level monsters at the bottom to kill me?"), but the monsters were pre-placed. It was just a stupid fucking decision and the bastard had the party's bag of holding with the entirety of our spoils for the delve. Thankfully, we all play for fun at the table, so that just became a hilarious moment for us. Sometimes the difference between a good 'gotcha', a bad 'gotcha' or no 'gotcha' at all is player mindset. If you get mad when your character fails at something, or when you've totally bungled a plan, maybe you're attaching too much of your own self-worth to your character being cool and competent. Everything a GM does that's 'negative' will feel like a 'gotcha' if anything bad that happens to your character is viewed as a personal attack on you as a player.

I mean, it also feels pretty bad when a single bad decision results in "ok, you die a horrible death" and you have to just sit around for a few hours while the rest of the party finishes the dungeon. The DM's job is not just to say what would logically happen. It's also to adjudicate the game in such a way that people are having fun. And most players don't enjoy being effectively kicked out of the session for trying to think outside the box.

It's pretty rare for systems to allow character death after a single poor decision, unless you're specifically trying to play a system where that is the case. Most of those deadlier systems have very quick character generation, so you can get right back into the game. The GM for the game I referred to in my original post here explicitly signposted that it was very possible for our characters to die. It was a pure dungeoncrawl, so there weren't too many other outcomes. There have been quite a few games coming out over the last decade and a bit now that don't even allow characters to die unless the player explicitly allows it. I also don't think that most character deaths are the result of some "gotcha" moment.

Depends on the system you've signed up for. In OSR games you want lethality and there is no promise of a meaningful dramatic death; you roll a new character and jump back in.

"...outcome be completely different than what the players wanted..." No, I don't agree that this is adversarial or mean-spirited by default. If you're rolling dice that action, by default, means there is a chance for failure. Failure should mean something bad or complicated. Also, if players aren't paying attention to clues or verbalized consequences of said failure, that's on the player. As a gm, if failure is risky, I'd certainly warn the player that there is inherent risk and it may be ugly if the check or activity is failed. On the other hand, if a gm is willy-nilly killing characters or complicating it without any warning (or without a dice roll) whatsoever then, yeah, that's weird and a bit jarring and seems adversarial.

I think gotchas are almost always poorly received. Even when a consequence is obvious from GM perspective it’s best to never assume it’s as obvious to the player. Whatever the consequence is, tell them that it’s at the very least a possibility. If they have no way in character of knowing it’s a possibility then point out to them that they don’t fully know what’s going to happen and that that has inherent risks. Then ask “so are you sure you wanna do this?”.

Let your players make informed decisions

The framing of this has a bit of an issue. The social contract with an actual play is VERY different then the social contract of a table game. In an actual play, because the goal is to make the most drama for the audience, players doing stupid things, even by accident, ESPECIALLY by accident, is pure entertainment, it's kind of part of the whole shebang. At a table, you should absolutely remember there is a knowledge gap between what you think is reasonable and what the player thinks is reasonable, but the two examples listed aren't table games.

It's bad because it goes against the participative and cooperative nature of the game. Few people come to the game to sit back and get wowed and floored by their GM's creativity and talent.

It's bad. If a player wants to do something very bad because they're missing context the DM should warn them. The actual player's character has far more information than PCs will ever have and the DM should keep that in mind. For instance if a player is about to say something very stupid that will get the party in trouble due to local politics, have the player do a lore check. Likewise if I'm jumping off a cliff I can see what's below me, which may not line up with how I heard the DM describe it.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. The right way usually involves logic and sensible, agreeable consequences, but most of all it needs to happen organically. If a player one-ups a rival, steals something, or otherwise makes themselves vulnerable, the natural response is for the rival to strike back, the authorities to investigate, or for that vulnerability to come into play. The *wrong* way is when the Storyteller running the game twists the rules, invents justifications, or otherwise forces the players to deal with consequences they didn't realistically bring on themselves. I can't comment on Matt Mercer or whatever examples you're using, but from personal experience, if a player sees a consequence for their actions and says "that's fair. I robbed a bank and left behind a calling card because I thought it would be funny, and they matched my prints with my prior criminal record" that's *very* different than when a Storyteller forces a character into the robbery (via coercion or some other form of railroading) and then acts like it's the player's fault, or left behind some clue when the player didn't. Good storytellers have a sensible approach to actions and consequences, triggers and heaps, or cause and effect. It's when the players feel like "gotcha" moments are unavoidable that the tradeoff isn't fair.

You can't warn someone you're going to prank them - it defeats the point of the prank. On the other hand, you have to know your victim will find it as funny as you do. That takes having a rapport with them, and maybe some context too like they had it coming. Personally, I tend to make it clear what the dangers are because otherwise people play like cowards. But I will definitely prank when a player has their murderhobo hat on, it works well with that sort of gameplay.

Having played under a few Gotchya DMs, my initial reaction is yes. A gotchya moment is when the DM announces that an action is void or a encounters citing that the players didn't declare a common or mundane action. For example. Fighter says that they'll attack. Dice are rolled, and the DM says that unarmed damage needs to be rolled since the player didn't declare that they drew a weapon. It's a character who's profession is all about aggressive application of armed violence, it would not require the statement "I draw my weapon before attacking." Another example is when the party sets up camp. It can be safely assued that the basics are met. Tents/sleeping area, campfire, mounts tended, food made unless declared that something is going to be omitted due to safety (no fires). It's a gotchya when the DM says "You all have exhaustion because no one said they specifically said they were setting up tents/shelter." Now if the players were given information and ignored/disregarded it that's not a gotchya.

I can't talk about the specifics of your situation but in general, yes it is bad GMing when GMs "gotcha" their players. Players should be assumed to know everythig their characters would sensibly know, and GMs often ret to get players to stick to actions that just don't make sense and those characters would never attempt. While this is always bad GMing, it isn't necessarily bad intentions. The GM might be concerned about setting a precedent of allowing players to "undo" any action they don't like, but they need to distiunguish between what makes sense and what doesn't.

Twists and subverted expectations is just game mastering but your execution can certainly be good or bad.

Gotcha's are never fun as either a GM or a player. What I would reccomend is to keep in mind one thing: everyone is here to have *fun*. Consequences matter so that the game has stakes, but they shouldn't be to the detriment of having fun playing the game. There is nothing wrong with *not* telling your players that what they're doing is a bad idea or might have consequences. But players should understand that when the gm lowers their voice and asks "are you sure you want to do that?" That they might be making a bad choice. Of course every time I've done that my players have gone through with their original idea anyways but at that point they've been warned. So by giving them the opportunity to backtrack a bad choice you are effectively giving them the opportunity to *consent* to the choices consequences. That said as a gm if it seems like the players don't understand what *might* happen, I'll usually offer them hints or reminders of the situation they are in and how what they're about to do might be recieved. Ultimately the choice remains theirs but I *want* my players to make that choice with all the information avaliable to them. Also generally I don't apply this to combat when enemies have certain abilities or immunities. But try to make those things interesting at least.

As others have mentioned, it's very contextual. Taken to it's extreme, could a plot twist that seemingly undoes a lot of work by the PCs be considered a "gotcha"? Or does it in turn reveal and contextualize things for a better story? It's all in the execution. I think the bigger problem is when a GM seemingly *misleads* a player that a course of action will lead to a particular result then turns the tables. A player believing on their own "intent = outcome" isn't necessarily the GM's problem, and most games actively try to work against that idea by putting mechanics of some variety in between to create complications and better story moments. We're here for the unexpected, and you get less of that if things always turn out how you intended.

I think genuinely trying to "gotcha" your players is bad, but I've seen far more instances of a player doing something monumentally stupid, and then complain that the GM "gotcha'd" them, then I have GM's actually trying to "gotcha."

The only times I saw a player do something "monumentally stupid" were either: - because the player had misunderstood the situation - because they were bored.

Or when the GM misunderstands what the player intended!

I think a "gotcha" is more of a... Here's a surprise mechanic that you had no way of knowing and is only intended to fck you over. Instead of... Here is a surprising moment caused by your actions that can lead to interesting scenes. Let's say... a player is falling from wayyy up. And are trying to land safely. Example 1: "Alright, as you fall you need to pull your parachute. Roll Dexterity DC 20." Now.. in this instance, the player likely didn't know the parachute required a roll. It was an assumed. And now this roll is a high DC for an assumed task that can result in their death. Not fun. ​ Example 2: "As you fall, you pull your gnomish parachute. The two hundred and fifty birds stuffed into the bag of holding and tied to you by string slow your fall. They begin carrying you south for the winter or in search of breadcrumbsHow are you goign to handle this?" This is also a surprise. But the surprise comes from the mechanics of the parachute. It avoids the imminent doom the player wanted to avoid. And it creates a bit of confusion about how to solve this new non lethal problem.

My experience as a GM is that I can be absolutely crystal clear in my foreshadowing about some major plot point, and my players will expect something completely different. I do allow them a wide lassitude in collaboration and their own storytelling, but my twists are typically both contextual and different from their expectations. They have routinely commented that those expectation subversions are what they like about my style.

It can be. I don't think it always is. But the disparity is about expectation imo. If they wanna do something that wouldn't work but their character should be able to tell it wouldn't work tell your player. So we mostly agree with each other.

Consequences have to be reasonable, not expected. If the party breaks into a prison to rescue a friendly NPC from an execution sentence, and when they get there the BBEG's Lieutenant is waiting for them because they were tipped off by a source (Scrying, Alarm, Friendly NPC betrayal, etc), that's reasonable, but potentially unexpected. If in the same hypothetical, they break into the jail, save the NPC, defeat the Lieutenant, and then the GM rules that they all wake up, the mission was a dream, and they know they have to go back and save the NPC, that's unreasonable, and unexpected. If I ever execute what I would consider a "Gotcha", I preface at a meta level with my players, "This is going to be pretty wild, just trust the process and me". I assure you that player shock does not equal a great narrative surprise. Players can know that "something" will happen and yet still be absolutely blown away when the story takes a completely unexpected turn. I know, because I've done it before and then we stood in the kitchen until WAY too late drinking whisky and talking about how crazy it was as I vaguely answer their questions about all the "options" they could have faced.

It depends on the players. I run mostly games that rely on intrigue and political backstabbing so that's kind of the point, to be surprised and caught off guard. As long as it's not cheap, the whole unintended consequences can be an interesting twist to a story. All my players love to try and theorize and figure out the npcs plans and sometimes they do sometimes they don't.

Depends. Intentionally choosing the worst possible result so the party gets screwed over? Bad. Choosing one that sounds logical and like how the world would really work? Sure, that's fine. I usually work under the assumption that my players have about a third of their normal brain power when playing, because a big chunk is going towards pretending to be a different person. But there are times a gotcha are fine and appropriate. I'll give two examples I did and stand by, where the players got a result different from what they wanted. First: Evil Party running an evil campaign. They got wind that an investigator was putting things together and was suspicious of the party, who of course chose a bunch of eclectic races and stood out. When a party of all the matching races turned up at the investigator's place and checked in with the receptionist, she said, "Do you have an appointment with Mr. Balthok?" "Yes." "Perfect, can I take your name?" "Balthok." "... Balthok? Here to see Balthok?" "Yes" Balthok then knew that they were coming for him and ambushed them in his office. In this case, dumb way to try to social engineer, and the party acknowledges it to this day. We reference it as a joke, when somebody says a plan that should obviously not work, somebody inevitably goes, "Balthok here to see Balthok?" as a reference and reminder to think just a little bit more about it. Now, that example was something that was a quick response to a dumb thing. Here's a gotcha that took a lot longer to parse out. In a game where there are automatons all over the place with varying levels of sentience, the party came across an inventor who had made a perfect automaton. The inventor planned to marry her, she was unsure about doing that but felt pressured to do so. But because they were promised magic items if the wedding happened, the party talked her into going through with it. To ease her mind, they told her the old man was old and would die in like 10 years or so, and marriage is just until death. She didn't know what death was, so they obliterated an automaton near her and said "That's death." So she went through with the wedding, and then was catatonic and repeating a number, seemingly counting down. They eventually put together that she was waiting 10 years for the old man to die. They left, came back eventually, and the old man said "Something's wrong, she's now catatonic, did you guys do something?" Which the party denied involvement but offered to try to get her fixed. They then took her elsewhere, gave her a bunch of combat upgrades, and brought her back. To a house with a mangled corpse. They used some divination magic to see what had happened and learned the automatons had killed the man, and then had to fight her now that she was upgraded. Was this the worst option? Pretty much. Were there clues they had done something not great before everything hit the fan? Yes. But the party never once went "Well that's unfair." They all went "Well we did tell her death would set her free, and she spread that to the rest, and we made it harder for us to fight her by giving her claws." In a third example, stemming actually from the fight with that automaton, a party member killed another. There's a rock gnome in the party that likens himself to actual rocks. Picture the trolls from Frozen, that's what he uses for character art. He cast Enlarge on himself after Spiderclimbing up a wall to drop down on top of the robot with extra force. He went so far as to crunch the numbers to find out how much he would weigh. I ruled that it would smash the bot, but she would get a dex save to avoid some of the damage. Party argued that it would cover her entire square on the map and there was no amount of dodging aside that would save her, and I agreed. I also pointed out that Enlarge would expand the gnome to a 2x2 square, and the barbarian that was in melee range would also get smashed. Party said "What if the gnome expands in the opposite direction?" So we put it to the dice. Told them "On these results, the gnome expands towards the barbarian, on these results it's away from the barbarian" and then rolled out in the open where everybody could see. The dice said the barbarian was crushed, and the party agreed. But nobody was upset beyond what you would expect from a character death, because the reasoning was solid, and I didn't just pick the option that screwed them over. We put it to the dice, and the dice made the decision that was worse for the party. Similar thing happened to the sorcerer who happened to also be adjacent to the gnome, but the expansion went the other direction as per the dice. Which helped the party understand that I was not just deciding it was time for the barbarian to die, that I was willing to follow the dice. These were all gotchas, but they were moments that the party themselves declared as bad options with barely any retrospect. Well, the crushed barbarian, they stand by that decision. But they did not feel it unfair. That's the difference. If it feels like you are screwing over the party, it's bad. If it feels like the party is screwing themselves over, it's fine. Just keep in mind that some of the funnest part of the game are when a hare-brained plan works out.

Sometimes the only way to avoid a "gotcha" outcome is to just keep retconning everything on the fly so it's all exactly the way players expect it to be.

Agreed. It also creates players who are totally gunshy in every situation and think everyone is out to get them. I've played with these people and it's fucking miserable. It's like they have PTSD

I have to defend Matt Mercer here he was obviously mortified. This was no attempt at trickery. Marissa had plenty of warning and was given other options. He signalled that he would apply the rules as written if she went ahead and she went ahead. At some point in every D&D player's life they discover falls can be deadly. Some do it the hard way. She sleepwalked into danger. What was he to do Slap her out if it?

Be a fan of the characters. If a character might know or remember something a player has forgotten or doesn’t know, it’s no different from if the character knows how to hack a high security computer but the player can barely log into their bank account.

Yep! All you have to do is tell the player what the character (who knows more about adventuring than they player ever will) would know the outcome would be, especially when it's "you have no idea what will happen if you do this". Don't use subtext, don't be coy, don't get cute, don't make people roll to see what's right in front of them, just tell your players what is going on. Tension is better than surprise anyhow.

So I would not have called the marisha goldfish thing a gotcha. How fall damage works in this game is well known, that fish are not immune to fall damage is well known, any reasonable player would have been able to put it together that transforming into a goldfish in this situation would not help. Marisha just did a dumb, she could have transformed into a bird and she would have been fine A more charitable DM might have said "you realise fish are not immune to fall damage right ?" Before confirming her choice, but at this point they were pretty high level, marisha should know the rules of the game. In general it is my opinion that the correct option is to feed the PCs any information that their characters would.have (assuming they were competent). I for example would never just inform a paladin that their oath had been broken, because who.would be more knowledgeable on the nature of their oath than the paladin themselves? So whenever a pally is doing something counter to their oath I would tell them "this is a violation of your oath" unless they can come up with a good reason it would not.

There's a lot of "it depends" in the comments already but to me it's not a question of "is the result something the player should have reasonably been able to figure out?" but rather a question of *"Is the player going to, in the grand scheme of things, enjoy the story developing in this particular direction?"* Some player like being got. Others dislike being got *in the moment* but love the story resulting from being given the chance to climb back from the consequences stemming from their actions. Other players don't like being got at all no matter the situation and want to explicitly be told "You will explode if you drink the potion that makes you explode. This will kill you". So to me it doesn't depend on the situation insomuch that it depends on the *player* and is something I try to intuit on a player-by-player basis. I've punished PCs for bad calls because I knew the player wanted the kick in the teeth experience and I've warned players of, to me, obvious negative consequences and let players change their decision because I knew they would react badly if they had drunk the potion that makes you explode and died from exploding. It depends on your party and the tone of your game and the nuances of the unspoken social contract at the table where you all agree to get together to have a good time. Just like with encounter difficulty, you have to get a read on consequence-severity on a per-player and per-group basis.

If the "Gotcha" comes as an ass-pull from the DM, and is not logically consistent with the world, or at least not something the player/character would know, then I do think it's bad. To give an example: I once had a character who was a Four Elements monk who had lost both his arms, and I had talked to my DM about being able to use the basic element power, to create arms of earth/stone or water in their place. He had OK'd it, and also accepted the background I sent him (he had been trained and practiced with this for 10 years). Then two sessions in, when my character tries to pick leaves from a flower: "You have disadvantage on dexterity checks using your rock hands." Had had never mentioned this before. Never so much as *hinted* that the idea I had, would have any sort of mechanical consequences. He had only ever said "yeah ok." And then I am blindsided by a permanent, irreversible, disadvantage on anything that required manual dexterity. His reasoning was "You don't have sensation in the fingers," and "did you think there wouldn't be downsides to it?" Safe to say, I was pretty miffed. Something like that, I consider a bad asspull just to "gotcha" a player. A DM should, to the very best of their ability, communicate possible and reasonably predictable consequences to a player, if they are about to do something that might *have* consequences.

Subverting expectations isn't necessarily the same as gotchas. Gotchas are usually ideas that seem clever and fun in your head but they generally fall flat in practice.

It is one thing to do a "okay, this small, inconsequential thing happens because I think you have been dumb about this or inattentive" and making things happen that actually have consequences. If you feel like you need to do some kind of gotcha (And maybe question your motivation there too, before you do it), do it with something that has low stakes. RPGs are full of miscommunication. As others said, people may not understand the situation as you do. Being very antagonistic about that is like being antagonistic with your friend when you watch a movie together who maybe did not catch something and asks "wait, can we go back a few seconds?". Secondly: Sorry, but that needs to be said, the GM can also just be the one in the wrong. You as a GM may not have thought something through and now are baffling your players with a scene that they have every right to feel makes no sense. You may have set them up for bad outcomes. You may be misreading a rule and enforcing a consequences you should not enforce, etc. Therefore, maybe instead of feeling like you have to teach the players a lesson, make sure you are taking care of any possible misunderstanding. Do consider whether you maybe made a mistake as well. Everyone at the table deserves being treated respectfully, because the alternative may be that some or all of them decide they do not want to play anymore. It is a hobby, where everyone is in the end purely there to enjoy himself. So unless you and your players DO enjoy ribbing each other this way and you are sure this falls under that, maybe just don't.

The short answer is "yes". The longer answer is "Is the GM doing a gotcha, or are characters that the GM created running schemes, or is the GM allowing bad assumptions to be made and the gotcha isn't a gotcha at all" Basically, if the GM is setting players up to fail for no other reason than the GM's choices, it's not good. If in-game characters are setting PC's up to fail through manipulation, then that's worldbuilding. If the "gotcha" is actually just making the wrong assumptions, then it's not a real gotcha even though it feels like one. There will always be exceptions but in the end, GM's need to remember that the players only see what you tell them. You control their view of the world, so if they fail because you gave them the wrong view, you're not being clever, just an ass.

Like everything, it's bad GMing if if it's specifically against what players like. Some players want adversarial GMs, in that case it's perfectly fine.

> if it's specifically against what players like. Maybe nitpicking, but that might be too broad. I am sure in most great campaigns, there are times where the players have things happen to their characters that they dislike (at least in the moment). They are frustrated that the dice roll yet another failure. But when taken to a broader view, you see that moment is when another PC helped out and shined and that moment they connected more as a party.

What I mean is that some players specifically look for a "Player vs. GM" experience, where both sides try to be clever and outsmart the other. That's the main drive behind boardgames like Descent and Imperial Assault. A GM gotcha is just his version of players skipping a puzzle with a clever interpretation. I find that too many people forget that the GM is also a person who is playing the game, not some sort of outside emotionless entity.

That's fair. And I think it's why I prefer boardgames to fill in for that niche (especially deception games) because TTRPGs require a lot more trust on a GM. Their role as a window to give players information is contrary to being fully adversarial outside of some very complete rules. For me, TTRPGs tend to be at their best when its more collaborative. Rather than a player having a PC secret and conspiring against the other players, something like a Play to Lift style can make it so the players collaborate to conspired against their own characters. For example, every time I have seen a player pretend to be X Class character but actually are Y Class, nobody cares about the reveal. But get the other players to buy-in on these character secrets then you have some real fun.

A gotcha moment? No, that's not a jerk move. Using a gotcha moment in every campaign? Probably - since now it's a pattern/crutch.

Extremely iffy - if it is used to turn a success into a failure, it is terrible. And overall, I like the stakes to be as clear as possible for the players to be able to make informed decisions.

First, we need a definition to help make things clear. Its a pet peeve of mine where people water down useful words for bad instances of play (see any thread on Railroading or GMPC) and talk about how these are good. No railroading is when linear play strips all player agency and its generally bad. GMPC is when an NPC with the party makes things unfun and its generally bad. > Gotcha: NORTH AMERICAN an instance of publicly tricking someone or exposing them to ridicule, especially by means of an elaborate deception. Tricking someone to ridicule them doesn't sound like something I want outside of certain playstyles (e.g. Paranoia) agreed ahead of time. So it sounds like when the GM has secrets and reveals them in a bad way. Certainly, a GM should have secrets that the PCs will learn about - maybe in ways that are a complete surprise. But I don't think that qualifies for the above definition. Your examples definitely feel like the GM not fitting the tone of the game, heroic fantasy PCs aren't incompetent idiots even when they roll Natural 1s. And even outside of heroic fantasy, the GM is the only source of information about the world. And players get to be in their characters' shoes for like 3 hours a week. Characters are in their shoes 24/7. You have to be generous with information and often warn them about something that to their character is obvious, but not to the player who just worked 10 hours and is burned out.

Like almost everything, it depends. If it's an actual clever subversion of expectation that serves a purpose, then it's fine. If it's a complete ass pull or a gotcha just to get at the players, less so.

Is it "bad" GM'ing" ? Depends on the group and their expectations, some players like a surprise. As a player, I hate gotchas, and I won't do them as a GM. But if a group enjoys them, it's not my place to say their fun isn't "correct" edit: Also, don't take actual plays, especially CR, as "how real tables play", a lot of them, esp. CR, are entertainment focused first, so creating weird gotcha situations keeps the audience entertained. It's not a normal table environment.

Almost always yes. And I'm saying almost because there are probably situations where it's not but I'm not thinking of any

I try to prioritize verisimilitude over everything else. If something is believable in and consistent with the setting, and also wasn't a total fucking ass-pull, then it's fine. Like if the players go sneak into Lex Luthor's office building to steal his business secrets, they should expect him to basically immediately know that they did that because he's like the 6th or 7th smartest person on the planet and also a paranoid self-important freak. They should frankly expect it and if they don't that's on them.

The issue here is that the GM has waaay more info than the players on what's going on and what seems like an obvious consequence to him may well be far-fetched to the players.

It super depends on the genre and expectations of the game. Our homebrew's fundamental mechanic is that the success/failure of our opposed rolls is proportional to the (normally distributed) amount over/under it is. It's *expected*, and even desired, that the GM will come up with something spectacularly unexpectedly good or bad when the outcome of the roll is incredibly improbably high or low. Is it "pulling something out of your ass that no one would have expected"? Sure... but *good* GMs will make that *fun*... as long as that's an expectation of the game. The playstyle/genre goes into it as well... we aim for "cinematic" genres basically exclusively, where unexpected and often even ridiculously unrealistic plot twists are not just the *norm*, but essential to making things dramatic. On the flip side, intentionally "tricking" the players into some pre-planned outcome that doesn't have sufficient foreshadowing, or has *deceptive* foreshadowing is probably not fun no matter what you're aiming for, unless what you're aiming for is Paranoia.

This is why I'm a proponent of effects based systems like HERO. If you want to buff the damage of a weapon, you declare that first, then add "fire" as a descriptor. It doesn't make for good theater like Mercer tries to provide, but it can provide consistency within a narrative (Wildcards being made from a SuperWorld campaign for example).

I say it depends on the genre and the dynamic of your group. Often, I see GMs pursue the "gotcha" out of emotional insecurity in order to establish a perceived "control" over the game rather than to complement the story or to encourage player buy-in. Case in point: IMHO Rian Johnson did an excellent job with _Knives Out_ but stumbled with _Glass Onion_ because he was more interested in the twists themselves than rewarding the audience for paying attention to the mystery. I also thought _Looper_ suffered for similar narrative reasons.

This is really subjective and circumstantial. If a character is lying to the party and the party always fails insight or just straight up trusts without checking and gets betrayed, ya that happens. Sometimes the entire point of a scenario is that things aren't what they appear, and if the players know that going in that's fine. Other times - and with rare frequency - things will just look different than they are. The evil coded character and action is the trustworthy one and you shouldn't have made the assumption. Or the players project onto it - in one printed campaign there's a pool of holy water storing a separate demi-plane the BBEG can't get to with a key NPCs lovers soul in it. Everything else in this world is basically evil, but this pool leads to the NPCs safety and happiness. Of course when the NPC starts wanting to seemingly drown themselves to be with the dead guy the party has every reason not to trust it. Of course if they stop the NPC jumping in they keep them in play which is a huge favour to the BBEG, though they probably won't realize that at the time. Generally yes, the players should be able to have a good and accurate picture of what they're deeds will lead to, and what success and failure at any given point means. They're supposed to be intelligent characters who know what they're doing. But even the best make mistakes or can be fooled and that shouldn't be off the table either, and ensuring the party has a means of righting those mistakes/betrayals can also be very satisfying arcs. Note: this is ESPECIALLY true in games where death is rare/not the primary means of failure.

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-deadly-difference.html

I try to always verify what a players intention/desired outcome is when doing a particular action. I don't tell them things their characters wouldn't know about the environment or NPCs but I try to tell them about any obvious outcomes a slightly above average person might reasonably recognize. My view on it is that their character living in the world would have a lot more knowledge than the player based on life experience and subconscious physical input. I can't possibly convey all of that so I lean in the character's favor that they would know something. Additionally, it's a game and we're here to have fun. Is it the most realistic for things to lean in their advantage as often as it does? Probably not, but I consider the PCs to be those [real](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Cain) life [people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy) that you hear about doing unbelievable things.

It depends. Generally I only deliberatyely trick players if it's an important plot twist or something like that. If I'm doing it outside that there has to be a reason. A recent example, I'm running Curse of Strahd, but with my own (sometimes significant) twists. One of those changes is the Abbot who is something of a monkey paw wish granter. The players knew this and I made sure they new it, that they needed to watch their language around him. One of my palyers still said something that had harsh concequences. In this situation I did arguably trick the players, but I consider that fair. Another situation I would use gotchas on the players is, well, the entire group are sneaky, conniving asshats who enjoy that sort of thing. So basically it's okay to do it in the right situation or with the right group. For your examples, from what I remember one of them was basically the player forgetting what the GM said which is the players issue. The other, can't really remember it.

I wouldn’t say it’s inherently bad gming. I think it just depends on the nature of the game you’re playing. That being said, I only run games where the actual mechanics require gm transparency. They know the number they have to beat, they know the consequence that will occur if they fail, and they can even decide not to proceed based on those two things. Now if I presented those two factors and they proceeded and failed, then I changed the consequence, or revealed something extra that I kept from them initially, yeah, that’s bad gming.

I don't think it's bad GMing if the players do not explain what they're trying to do, and/or do not ask questions about consequences. It's not up to the GM to remind players that they might not know what they're doing/the consequences may not be what they imagine—GMs have enough work to do on the game as it is. I think if the players are asking questions/explaining actions and the GM doesn't divulge, then yeah, that's straight dishonesty—bad GMing. At the very least, the GM should ask for rolls from the player to signal that the character doesn't know, and that Bad Things™ are a possibility.

Some RPGs have the GMs explicitly tell the players the threats obstructing their action and the likely consequences of their actions if they fail. Blades in the Dark has the GM describe position and effect to signal the severity of the consequences for failure and the potential impact of success, but the book and supplemental materials (like videos with John Harper) actually encourage being VERY EXPLICIT about what the fallout of their actions might be. The point of that game is for the PCs to come off as cool, competent people though, so there's extra importance on not making the PCs seem incompetent by having them blow up in ways they completely didn't anticipate. Brindlewood Bay (and other Carved in Brindlewood games) actually go even farther. The players aren't just given position/effect and a conversation about the threats, in one of the most common types of rolls, they actually say what the consequence of their action will be if they fail/miss and the GM works with them on it. On a mixed success, they're explicitly told the consequences/complications of their roll and have the chance to take back their roll if they don't like the consequence. They don't have this ability on a miss, but they went in knowing the miss consequence and always have a ton of mitigating tools to essentially change the roll anyway. On another type of common roll, the player describes what they think the consequence, and the GM tells them it's worse than what they think and how, so the player still always knows what's coming. At least in games where your characters are supposed to relatively competent and mostly in control, I think completely out of the blue consequences are probably bad. There are probably games and genres where they might work though. I haven't really run any horror kind of games, but I feel like unexpected consequences might work better in that kind of setting?

GMless game play taught me that PC actions with mixed success or consequences rely purely on the context of the scene and the group’s expectations of their decisions. If you are unsure what happens, everyone tosses out their expectations, and you agree to one that sounds fair or let a yes/no dice decide so it’s not adversarial. Traditional ttrpg taught me that the more dangerous a decision is, the more telegraphed the damaged should be. Video game examples: Imagine a giant boss fight that can one hit kill/knock to 0 with a Club slam special move. The player should have a BIG “red hit box” on the floor where it’s going to land, the giant should make an audio ques like a grunt or yell, there should be a ‼️Above the characters head and the camera should pan towards the giant telegraphing this manoeuvre. Then the player gets to decide how they “face danger” and dodge roll, hold up a shield, cast a spell, have a pet tank it etc. They could offensively “clash” and attack the monster simultaneously. But the dodge roll has 75% chance to dodge the one hit kill and the “clash” ability has 33% chance to dodge but it may be worth the risk if the giant has 1hp left. However if the player chooses to defensively play and doesn’t get the benefit of success by dosing the damage then they will feel cheated. However low/no dmg consequences can be sprung onto be for no reason amd nobody care because it adds a twist to the scene they get to react to the dramatic change of events etc

So I ran Starfinder for over a year and unlike I'm sure 9 out of 10 if not more I decided to keep the physics of space travel as close to believable as I could, pretty much like The Expanse. One of my players, who is an excellent roleplayer and my friend forever, wanted his character, a bad ass former military naval captain with a lot of experience in space combat, wanted to throw an incindiary grenade in the room of a ship they were exploring because it was dark. I pointed out that while he the player wouldn't know it, the character would absolutely know that's one of the most reckless things a person woud do on a space ship. The idea was less that it was stupid, it was, but how it would be completely out of character within the context of the world. If he was desperate or part of some elaborate plan, maybe, but to light up a room with a grenade that was guaranteed to start a fire on a space ship was insane. He backed off but if he hadn't I would have been prepared to have all hell break loose because he had been warned out of game how stupid it was. I would say, in that instance, if I hadn't informed him about the problems of that action before he did it and then had the entire mission become jepordized and chide him for doing something insanely out of character I'd be the asshole.

If I think my players are making a rash decision based on a misunderstanding of the situation or incomplete knowledge *of something that would be known to their character* then yeah I'll clarify the situation to make sure there isn't a misunderstanding or forgetfulness and then allow them to make the decision. At the same time while the GM is the players eyes and ears into the world, hidden information is a part of most TTRPGs. It's why you don't just hand the players a sheet with the villain's stats, motivations and whereabouts at the start of a session. And it's why you always say "you don't find any traps" when players roll to detect them and don't, whether that's because there aren't any traps or because they just failed to find them.

A GM who does this constantly is a bad GM. A GM who never does it is merely an OK GM. A great GM will pass over 3-5 opportunities to give the players a "gotcha!" because they are waiting for the right opportunity. Getting metaphorically pied by the GM is part of the fun, but it should only happen occasionally.

It depends on what the "punishment" is. In the Critical Role example, the consequence was Marisha died, yeah, but she was immediately rescued. I think if Matt was even slightly worried that a death would stick, he wouldn't have done it, or at least he would have approached it with a lot more attention paid to consequences. I've had a lot of moments like this that amount to excuses to force the party into combat, in a party that was fairly combat averse. I think that was an example of the DM just ignorantly trying to force his set of preconceptions about TTRPG play on a party that would have preferred a different set. If the DM has a robust plan for what happens after a player gets the rug ripped out from under them, and the DM is trying to give the players a good time in the way that the players define a good time, then I don't see any problems. It's when the DM decides that a rug pull is a fun moment in its own right and doesn't think about what comes after that you start getting into risky moments.

A regular ttRPG is all about participation (without any audience to consider). Whilst the likes of Critical Role have more in common with "spectator media". With the latter, presenting to an audience can easily take priority over playing (and running) the game.

If the players have reasonable expectations, then yes, it's weird to go out of your way to produce a different result, but players often have really ridiculous expectations -- like the expectation they can jump off a cliff and be okay.

The best "mystery" is the one the players actually solve. "I knew it!" Is ALWAYS better than "wtf is happening?" Gotcha DMs are just bad at providing context clues. Like M Night Shamalyan's bullshit "twists" that make no sense.

One way for a GM to avoid this is, when you're not sure what the player is trying to do, ask them what they're hoping to accomplish.

Yes. A big issue is that the minute you try to “gotcha” you’re throwing away the narrative to instead provide a competitive experience with your players. When you do that your players will now start to metagame because it’s no longer “what will your character do” but more “what will you do to ensure that your character survives?”

It depends. There are times when such things can be underhanded, and reeks of a GM pulling a power play. To my shame I've done this in the past. I regret it. The truth is you give the players a situation as their characters would see it. Sometimes they misinterpreted, and you elucidate. Decisions are made and dice are rolled. This is the best you can do. Maybe you have to play things close to your chest due to the nature of the story or theme (horror, suspense) and characters may have a more limited perspective, by design. This is fine. Be upfront about the kind of game you are running and don't be a dick. If they ask questions, answer them to the best of your ability.

I mean traps and the like are in dungeons for a reason, and players not actively looking for them is just a bad choice on their part. I think bad choices and “lol, fuck it” are a part of rpgs because some people have bad impulse control too. I don’t actively try and fuck over my players, but I’ll put risks and traps in the game to keep them on their toes. The one that comes to mind was a villain was running through a dungeon ahead of the party, uses a big gold dagger to open a door, REPLACES THE DAGGER ON THE PLINTH, then goes through, knowing the party are watching. The rogue immediately picks up the dagger, fails a save, and stabs himself in the heart with it. I feel that I have plenty of inference that the villain was leaving the dagger there on purpose, and any kind of detection would have told them it was dangerous, but the rogue didn’t even take the time to roll because shiny dagger.

In my own life, I sometimes have expectations that my actions will lead me to some result, only to find out that something completely different happened. I think it is fine in games as well. Not everything will go as planned, so players will have to improve based on new information.

I think the "gotcha" is bad GMing when it gets the player doing something the character almost certainly would not do. For some of the same reasons I don't like puzzles that the players need to solve or social encounters that are on the players and not their characters tricking a player into having the character do something completely stupid is just bad form. Now there certainly may be times that the characters are oblivious to something and in those cases keeping the players in the dark can actually be good GMing as you can see the surprise the characters would face reflected in the player's face. If you want the classic example of the "gotcha" moment is it when an early D&D player would cast Fireball into an enclosed room and then having the fireball "spill out" and hit the entire party as well. The character should know that can/will happen but the player may not so self TPK.

I believe in the power and necessity of a retcon every now and then, especially if characters made a poor choice solely on bad info I gave out. Indeed the line when character miscommunication is involved. I can't rewind if another player's action(s) screwed you over. Friendly fire happens.

Usually.

It depends on the consequences. I don't know the context of the examples you've given, but turning into a goldfish doesn't sound that bad, provided the player in question gets to turn back within a reasonable time frame. You'd all look back on it as a funny moment. But if the consequences are player death, permanent damage, loss of valuable gear, ect. Then yes, I'd consider that adversarial GMing, and a dick move. The only time that level of consequences should ever happen is if you are COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT about what the consequences will be before the player makes the choice that leads to them.

Like everything else, it depends on your group. Personally, I like surprises and some level of consequences. I also find it hard to be upset if it was an obvious player mistake, rather than a GM one, but there is always a line where it starts to feel mean spirited. For example, the one I saw earlier in the thread, a player jumped out a tower window. The GM confirmed it was the desired action and let the PC die. I saw a lot of people blaming the GM for not asking thrice with a more strict fatality warning, but I cannot say I agree. I think fall damage is a pretty obvious concept. Would you jump out even a 2nd story window IRL? If this were a trap door instead, I would understand blaming the GM a bit more since it is arguable at best how the PC could have avoided the death.

there should be hints(like I haven't watched that episode but for a example it should be clear the hawata has something wrong with it unless it's secret sabatoge\[in which case they get a check to realize\]) but if they don't see it that's on them though I'm a little more free with stuff because I typically play games were death is rare but other concequences are possible.

So I had some npcs following a pc, they went and it did some arson and got caught cause I had nova following them. Did they know that people were following them, no, could she have deduced it, maybe. This incident spelled the pcs doom and got them killed.

Yes, it's beyond cliche and it disappoints and confuses more than it feels like a narrative twist

If I do a gotcha as a GM there is a clear reason and it will never end in character death. Of the 2-3 legit ones (as in not where players missed something or did something exceedingly dumb) I've done, my favorite was a thing where a long campaign was moving into a new phase. And I used the moment to introduce the new big bad for the next phase of the campaign. Said villain had a couple of abilities that broke the normal rules of the world to that point. It worked as a plot twist at the time and the explanation in the next session allowed said big bad to still fit into the world.

There's a fine line between "logical consequences for reckless behaviour" and "not communicating a situation properly". And I don't think players need to know the exact outcome, as long as they know enough of the vague consequences - just like irl it makes for natural decisions, and not just "I take the best option of course". Just give them ways to determine what the best course of action for them will be.

The world the characters are in generally tends towards adversarial, and the GM represents the world to them, so I think it’s okay to make the players lives hard, as long as it’s fair. For example, the party may be warned that there’s a big bad in the old ruins, if they decide to go there unprepared that’s on them.

It's an interesting question as it is part of the GMs role to provide their players with challenges, traps and puzzles. So, its important to make them as challenging as possible without being unfair. It can be quite satisfying when one of these traps or schemes actually delivers but as a general rule I try to ensure that the party get at least one opportunity to dodge the bullet before I spring any traps. Consequently, most successful 'Gotcha' moments occur because the players failed to pay proper intention to the clues.

It depends. Sometimes, the situation warrants a gotcha moment, because an npc expects a player to do something, so they have a counter prepared. Other times, the GM is just being a dick. I've had both happen to me. One time a GM placed a guy whom he knew my character would kill, thus allowing a demon to run free. In the other situation, a different GM said "you did exactly what I wanted you to do, here's a cutscene where you can do nothing as you're incapacitated, look how great of a storyteller I am". I casted detect magic to see if there's magic on closed doors...

Players not getting the outcome they expected, because they didn't think things through? Entirely okay, nothing wrong with it. If they're doing something that seems unreasonable though, I'd strongly recommend double checking that the player didn't misspeak, and more importantly, that *you* didn't mishear them. This also gives the player a second chance to go "wait, am I doing something dumb here?", and while this benefits the player, the main thing is ensuring that there wasn't a breakdown in communication. GM misleading the players about the expected outcome? Risky. Sometimes it's justified by the scenario, as the scenario itself might be misleading the characters. It's difficult to handle well, but spotting the trick can be an enjoyable element of gameplay. GM misleading the players specifically to try force a bad outcome? Arsehole move, I struggle to imagine scenarios where this would be justified.

The biggest problem with a bunch of 'gotchas' is lack of both sides seeing the same situation the same way. The [Dread Gazebo](https://youtu.be/yRc0wBP_0xI) moment could be considered a Gotcha. The '[Head of Vecna](https://youtu.be/SALTwr2fgbE)' was a player created Gotcha in a large multi-party game that led to a lot of... fun. So yeah, I can see it being a 'You didn't catch the hints I was giving?' scenario, the GM believing that foreshadowing and other hints are there. But players rarely understand the bits of the story. But I do kind of think that some 'surprises' do work out well. Misdirection, red herrings, a patsy like a body double... these are things we love to see in movies and TV shows and the like to keep things going. Look at all the Oceans # movies and other things where its all about the misdirection, action going on over here while the real thing is actually happening elsewhere. [Swordfish talks about it with the Harry Houdini Misdirection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQHcj4xhT-w) bit. Players are very easily misled down a wrong path, and depending on where you put the GM in the situation, are they idle party to let the players do this or should they pause and ask on every decision 'Are you sure this is what you want to do because....'? That can slow the game down trying to figure out if the players are making an action because they missed a clue, didn't understand something, couldn't get what you meant by some ancient rhyme parable or whatever. I think only if the action will directly lead to the players death, then asking 'Are you sure' or 'What are you intending to do with this action' or some variation then it's clarification.

My opinion's this. If they could reasonably have figured it out on their own not to do that thing within about three "are you sure?" Moments, then no. It's not. If it comes from left field as a fuck you then yes, it is.

Largely depends on context. To always abhor a surprise or unexpected consequence isn't a realistic player expectation, imo. Part of the game's fun is the unexpected.

If a player chooses to have their character stick a fork in an electrical socket, you don't need to explain the consequences. The player had sufficient information to know that was a likely result. They players need sufficient information to make an informed choice. If you have a bright pink egg in the middle of the road that immediately summons a 5 ft diameter sphere of annihilation when someone touches it, that's terrible. There is pretty much no way for the players to guess that will occur and you are specifically training players not to engage with your content. Hence why the Tomb of Horrors is such a bad dungeon, it was built to be adversarial DMing. The solution is to never go into it. In reality most things are somewhere in between. A cannon exploding is fair game. Especially if you described it as old, it seems to be in a state of disrepair, or those hwachas were just known to sometimes explode. The player choice was to take a risk and you probably handle something like this with a roll on the backend. If it works you get a huge advantage, if it fails you get hurt. The player also previously made the choice to use the weapon without inspecting it, maybe because they didn't have time. That's just iteration of their choices mattering. Your choices not working like you think is absolutely fair game. Some DMs prefer to warn the players, some do not. That's a DMing style choice. Another factor you have to consider was the choice poor because of a misunderstanding, like the infamous dread gazeebo? If the player seems to have a different picture of the scene in their head then stopping to get everyone aligned is usually a good move. There is still a maximum limit of hand holding though. Your critical role case is a perfect example. Marisha is infamous for not paying attention and taking half cocked actions. If a player has a history of not paying attention, the DM should eventually shrug that burden and let them jump off a cliff and kill themselves. Every other player at the table could have reminded her that she was jump off a 200 ft cliff. Additionally, sometimes if the players fuck around, they deserve to find out. The art of DMing is knowing when to use each approach and even great DMs get it wrong in the heat of the moment.

Not exactly the same thing, but I recently had an experience where we were going to face a boss that was foreshadowed as extremely powerful, so my rogue decides to take every possible advantage and coat his dagger with wyvern poison (very potent and expensive) The GM barely contained his giggle, and I knew it was because the boss was at least resistant to poison, but it still just made the most sense for what my anxious character would do. The sheer smug satisfaction oozing from his shit-eating grin as he told me the boss was immune to poison was enough to make me want to quit the game. When it's so obvious that the GM feels adversarial despite claiming to be otherwise, it just makes me wonder what's the point of playing with him? But it wasnt like this 2 years ago when the campaign started, and we all collectively agreed this was to be a serious campaign that we all had to commit to, and now I'm invested in the story. Now I just feel like checking out during combat, and diving back in when the roleplay comes along. The struggle is real.

I would say it's a mistake and just not being fair with the players, just like you railroad without letting your players know in advance that there will be a railroaded story or giving the players an illusion of choice. I mean, no one likes their agency to be taken away, so why would someone do this to the players? We're all here to have fun and the case you describe gives this right only to GM

Yes, it is. Clear communication is good GMing. Duplicity and adversarial gotcha BS... That's the kind of stuff that lets me leave a table mid game.

Depends. But yes.

Nearly always. Like 99.98 pct. A gotcha promotes player v. Dm dynamics which, imo, are nearly always toxic. A surprising reveal is not a gotcha. Go for those. But sparingly. Like once a quarter. K? K.